ViacomCBS: Expanded Streaming Service Coming Later This Year

ViacomCBS announced Thursday it would launch a new streaming service combining content from both sides of the freshly merged company, its biggest move yet to compete with media giants like Netflix and Disney, Forbes reports.

The new service will expand on CBS All Access by bringing in content from Viacom’s cable channels like Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central. ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish said the offering will have a soft launch later this year and include 30,000 episodes of television shows and 1,000 movies.

The expanded service will include sports and news in addition to entertainment and more closely resemble NBCUniversal’s Peacock than Netflix or Disney+.

CBS launched All Access in 2014, but Viacom has been notably late to the game with only a handful of niche streaming services like Noggin and BET+.

The company will continue to license its content to other platforms. Viacom’s Nickelodeon struck a multiyear deal with Netflix before the merger went through, and content licensing makes up nearly a quarter of the company’s revenue.

Big numbers: CBS All Access and Showtime’s streaming app have a combined 10 million subscribers. While that’s a healthy 25% increase since early 2019, the services together do not yet match the might of rivals like Disney+ (26.5 million subscribers) and Netflix (167 million subscribers).

Meanwhile, CBS All Access and Showtime are on track to garner a combined 16 million subscribers by year’s end, ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish told investors Thursday.

Variety reports ViacomCBS’ subscription-streaming offerings ended 2019 with 11 million subscribers in total, a 50% gain over 2018. CBS Corp. previously forecast the two streaming services would reach 25 million subscribers by 2022. Bakish said the fourth quarter marked a record period of signups for CBS All Access, some of which was surely driven by anticipation for the Jan. 23 premiere of “Star Trek: Picard.”